


Everywhere That's Home

by IShipThem



Category: Sister Claire (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, soulmate!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7169984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShipThem/pseuds/IShipThem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ash's birthday gift! Joséphine and Marianne have a date in King Michel's private garden. Takes place in a Soulmate!AU because that's how my brain works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everywhere That's Home

They go around the big glass buildings that Joséphine calls greenhouses, and into a stretch of garden Marianne’s never been to before. She hasn’t started patrolling yet —too untrained— but she knows this place in particular is vetoed to anyone but the senior officers. Joséphine’s hand is hot and reassuring in hers. Marianne lets herself be pulled along, giggling all the way despite that they’re supposed to be quiet. She feels like she hasn’t  _ stopped _ giggling from the moment she first spoke to Joséphine.

They enter a winding path that guides them through the flowers, none of them familiar to Marianne. The sun beats down on them, making Joséphine’s silver hair sparkle, catching on the buttons of her jacket. Marianne squeezes her fingers tighter. Joséphine turns her head back to look at her, and her heart feels like a squeezed orange inside her chest, helpless in Joséphine’s hands. She’s so  _ beautiful _ and so wonderful and always right there at Marianne’s fingertips. Suddenly the space between them is just too much to bare. Marianne needs her closer, needs to wrap her arms around her, to make sure this is still true, that she can still touch Joséphine whenever she wants—

“Are we there yet?” she asks, picking up her pace to stand elbow-to-elbow with her. Joséphine smiles — _ beautiful, beautiful, beautiful _ — and brings Marianne’s hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to her fingers.

“Almost,” she says, and that’s fine. That’s just fine— Marianne can deal with  _ almost. _ Probably. Maybe. If it doesn’t take more than a minute.

They keep going down the path, getting further and further away from the yard and the ever more familiar sound of clashing swords and running feet. The sun is hot and Joséphine’s hotter, and the flowers are an explosion of colors and shapes and smells and bees. Marianne could look at them forever, but it’s hard to with Joséphine around. Their boots make a rhythm in the stones underneath their feet. For a moment Marianne’s ensnared by the sound, the way you’re hooked by a song that feels familiar, that nearly recognition before memory hits. She frowns, trying to place the tempo. Where does she know it from?

“Down here, darling,” Joséphine calls, and immediately Marianne forgets what she was thinking about, all melted golden inside.  _ Darling, _ she thinks, and her skin prickles all over.  _ Darling,  _ and she starts giggling again. So much for looking  _ sophisticated.   _

Hand in hand, Joséphine guides them off the path, taking care not to crush the flowers, and Marianne mimics her footsteps to avoid doing just that. Soon enough, she sees where they’re going. It’s a little tree groove, shadowed by the canopies of old— well, Marianne has no hopes of knowing which trees those are. They’re all thicker than her shoulders, though, and their leaves cast a shadow so dark between them, she’d have thought nothing could grow underneath it. 

And yet.

“Do they get enough sunlight?” Marianne asks, puzzled, looking down at the purple-rimmed white cups that pepper the ground. As she looks, she notices other colors in the mix: blue, pink, red. Joséphine guides her under the shadows.

“They receive  _ some _ sunlight,” she says, and maneuvers carefully amidst the flowers. “But this species is supposed to be grown in the shade. Or so King Michel tells me.”

“They’re pretty,” Marianne says, looking down at the petals licking her knees. She’s so distracted by them, she doesn’t notice Joséphine sitting down until she feels the tug at her arm. 

Her smile, when Marianne looks down at her, is shy and hesitant around the edges. “Do you want—?” Joséphine says, gesturing vaguely around her with her free hand, and Marianne’s heart leaps into her throat with joy.

“Move over,” Marianne says, and laughs when Joséphine tries to scoot aside, leaving her some space to lean back against a tree. “Not like that!” 

Kneeling down, she puts herself between Joséphine’s knees, crawling up her body until she can flop on top of her. Presses her cheek to Joséphine’s shoulder, curling in her lap same as she does when she nestles her blankets around her at night. Marianne has no idea where this is coming from. She’s never  _ done _ this. Though they’d gone from touches to hugging to kisses all in the span of a few hours, sitting on Joséphine’s lap had always seemed a little bit too—  _ bold.  _ Even for her.

But the afternoon is warm. Marianne’s muscles feel like fraying cloth, exhausted after going through drills and drills and yet more drills on top of that. She’d thought she’d fall asleep in the shower, and she’d been quite ready to go home and sleep right through until the next morning, screw being productive on her half-day off. 

But Joséphine had been waiting for her outside the barracks. Joséphine had asked her to come, shy and eager and  _ smiling, _ and Marianne would follow her into the depths of the ocean no matter how tired she felt. Joséphine is _ here. _ No one around but the flowers, no one here but her Joséphine, and the afternoon’s warm and sweet-smelling and buzzing slow with lazy bees. 

Joséphine’s so  _ hot, _ cuddling her is like stepping into an open fire.

Marianne never wants to leave.

“Okay?” she says, her voice gentle, letting her weight go against Joséphine’s chest. 

For a moment, Joséphine doesn’t answer. She’s gone still underneath Marianne, her lungs quiet, her hands hovering by her sides as if afraid Marianne will go up in smoke if she touches her. Marianne nuzzles her cheek against Joséphine's shoulder. Waits. Waits a little longer.

Slow, tentative, Joséphine's fingers curl under Marianne’s elbow. She presses gently, coaxing Marianne to slide a bit further up. Marianne goes, jamming an accidental elbow into Joséphine's thigh in the process —”ah  _ crap _ , I’m sorry!” “It’s fine, it’s fine, no damage done”— until she clicks right inside the circle of Joséphine's arms. Her body slides into the cup of Joséphine's body, the arch of her spine and hips and legs supporting Marianne better than any amount of cushions ever have.

“Okay?” Joséphine asks her, an echo, her voice quiet and warm in Marianne’s ear. Marianne nods. 

“Better than okay,” she sighs, holding on to Joséphine's sleeve. Joséphine slides an arm around Marianne’s waist, pulling her close, and presses her lips to her hair. Marianne giggles. Joséphine’s lips trail down to her temple, her cheek, pressing slow kisses along their path. She lets her mouth linger at Marianne’s brow. Closes her eyes.

Marianne does the same, her eyelashes folding down, breathing in Joséphine’s scent — polishing oil and dust and sugar. She sighs at the weight of Joséphine’s arm around her waist, grounding, quietly possessive. The heat coming off through her uniform. The tickle of her breath at her hair.

They stay like that for a long moment, listening to the faint sound of drills, and the much louder sound of birds chirping and insects buzzing. Marianne drops her head back to Joséphine’s shoulder. “Does King Michel keep a beehive in the gardens?” she asks, her eyes still closed.

Joséphine’s hand runs up and down Marianne’s arm. “Not in the palace grounds,” she says, tipping her head down to look at her. “Why, love?”

“Hmm, cause I like bees,” Marianne says, blinking her eyes open, squinting at the sun that filters through the leaves. “They remind me of home.”

Joséphine makes a thoughtful sound at the back of her throat that makes Marianne smile, turning her face into her neck. Oh, she knows that noise better than well. “And why’s that?” Joséphine asks. Marianne smiles again.

“There’s lots of them at Nuestra Señora,” she says, and only then does it occurs to her Joséphine wouldn’t know that’s where she meant. “You know what that is?” she asks, looking up at her. Joséphine hums thoughtfully, running a finger along the shell of her ear.

“That’d be your people’s capital city, yes?” she says, and Marianne beams up at her. Not a lot of people would’ve known.

“Yeah,” she agrees, and swings her legs over one of Joséphine’s, curling up into her. “But it’s so much  _ more _ than that. Nuestra Señora, it’s—” She pauses, her fingers drawing idle circles on the inside of Joséphine’s elbow. How can she tell her what she means? Nuestra Señora del Mar is so much more than their capital, so much more than a city. Nuestra Señora, it’s—

Taking a deep breath, Marianne whispers-sings into the afternoon air:

_ Dios te salve, Reina y Madre, _ __  
_ Madre de Misericordia, _ __  
_ Vida, dulzura y esperanza nuestra, _ _  
_ __ Dios te Salve

_ A ti clamamos las desterradas hijas del mar _ __  
_ A ti suspiramos, gimiendo y llorando, _ __  
_ en este valle de lágrimas _ __  
__  
_ Ea pues, Señora abogada nuestra _ __  
_ Vuelve a nosotras esos tus ojos misericordiosos _ __  
_ Y después de este destierro, muéstranos _ __  
_ Muéstranos, muéstranos _ __  
_ A nuestra casa _ __  
_ Fruto bendito de tu vientre _ __  
__  
_ Oh clemente, oh piadosa, oh dulce Madre nuestra _ __  
_ Ruega por nosotras, Santa Madre del Pueblo  _ __  
_  
_ She lets the music fade out, and in its wake feels suddenly self-conscious. She doesn’t think she’s ever sung  __ La Salve , or really any Drifter song at all, in front of any landfarer before. “It’s, hm, a prayer?” she tells Joséphine, kneading her arm restlessly. “For Nuestra Señora. For praising her, and, and asking her to bring us back home.” She glances up at Joséphine, her ears pink. “Because— because Nuestra Señora is home to all of us.”

She pauses, looking out into the garden. “Though actually I was born in Puerto de las Flores?”

“It was beautiful,” Joséphine says, interrupting what no doubt would be an endless babbling rant. Marianne beams up at her, feeling all syrupy inside. Joséphine cups her face in one hand. “Tell me more about it?” she asks, running her thumb across Marianne’s cheekbones. “About— Nuestra Señora? Is that permitted?”

Marianne’s mind violently flashes back to the horrible scare stories tia Martina used to tell her. Something like,  _ don’t tell anyone about the Drifter pod or you’ll get pregnant and die. _

Oh, no. No no no, wait.That’d been Bisabuela Claudia. And she was talking about sex. 

Still. There had been  _ plenty _ of horror stories about Drifters that babbled about the pod to outsiders. Smitten down by the vengeful spirit of Elisa Salvador herself. Marianne’s had to calm down her baby brothers more than once when they woke up screaming, fresh nightmares ringing behind their eyes. Blabbering. Getting fed to the Sirens. Drifters do  _ not _ fuck around with the secrecy surrounding the pod.

“Marianne?” Joséphine says, worry creeping into her voice, and Marianne snaps back to real life. 

“Woah, right, yeah,” she says, shaking her head to drive the images away. Settling back against Joséphine, Marianne kicks off her sandals. Takes a deep breath. “Tell you about Nuestra Señora…?”

_ Well,  _ Marianne thinks, waving away tia Martina’s angry voice,  _ plenty more to Nuestra Señora than the Drifter pod. _

So Marianne leaves out arriving in Nuestra Señora to the pod’s song, their barking calls and the rhythm of their splashing, calling out their  _ bienvenidas.  _ She doesn’t mention the pups and children chasing after each other, so very mixed up you can hardly tell who’s who. Doesn’t tell Joséphine of her baby brothers napping in a pile of pelts, Gabriella speaking in barks, and also the fact her first girlfriend was a Selkie.

But she  _ does _ tell her of the  _ Isla —“La Isla del Inmaculado Corazón _ , but no one  _ calls  _ it that”— with its stretches of pale pink sand, its plantations that feed the whole atoll, the Council Building with its sturdy red bricks. She tells Joséphine of the sea people that used the island as a port for years and years, dozens of different clans meeting by chance until they begun meeting by choice. The ring of ships and suspended homes they built around the island, following the coral. “A clam around a pearl,” Marianne tells Joséphine, who nods and folds her hand over Marianne’s precisely like so.

She flops all over Joséphine’s lap talking about the atoll, running in shallow waters after Gabriela, fishes scattering around their knees. The suspended bridges connecting ships. Flags and clothing hanging out to dry literally everywhere. Running into the first shelter you found during storms. Marianne lays her head in Joséphine’s stomach, playing with her hands and laughing herself silly recalling that one time fifteen of her friends got caught in an empty house for the night. “Next thing you know, we are chasing Isabela around a living room that was barely big enough to hold all of us because she kept hogging the marmelade.”

Joséphine’s hand fall to her hair and Marianne closes her eyes, leaning into her touch. She presses her cheek to Joséphine’s belly. “You can keep doing that for as long as you like,” she says, and feels her body go tingly and golden again when Joséphine laughs. 

“Then we’ll be here forever,” she says, pulling Marianne’s hair from her face. The sun comes down from behind her, making her seem hallowed by sunlight, and Marianne swears it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. 

“That’s fine by me,” she says, her voice quieter than she intended it. Joséphine’s eyes go that side of soft that makes Marianne want to kiss the breath out of her, not that’s hard to accomplish. Joséphine’s existence makes Marianne want to kiss the breath out of her.

“You haven’t told me about the bees,” Joséphine says, and Marianne hums in agreement, pressing a kiss to Joséphine’s palm. 

She tells her about the buzzing sound that’ll follow you everywhere in the Isla. Blowing sweet smoke over the bees to calm them down before collecting honey. Children covered in it up to their hair. Her Tio Cristovão that taught her about raising a hive, that took her and Gabriela up to his apiary and had his bees walking over their knuckles as they held their breath, squinting to see the pollen sticking to their little wings. She tells Joséphine of dancing to signal the location of pollen, and the flowerpots people will leave out in their ships, in their windowsills, along every path. 

“We don’t have a lot of space for planting,” Marianne says, running her lips over Joséphine’s knuckles. “So bees are our best bet for sweetness. They help us grow food. And we can keep them up on on the hillsides that are too steep for anything else.”

Pausing for a moment, looking up at the canopy, Marianne thinks— not of Nuestra Señora, but of her sleepy home village, with all of its five hundred inhabitants. The house she was born in, with its wooden stairs that she and Gabriela used to run up and down, jumping, making the boards shake and go  _ BLAM BLAM BLAM. _ The short snatches of beach in which she learned to swim. The flower fields. The greenhouses — though they looked nothing like King Michel’s glass buildings, and Marianne didn’t call them greenhouses. 

They had a pod that visited sometimes. Marianne recalls stealing a pot of honey to share with the pod puppies, and the furious licking that resulted from that. She remembers Mama carrying her back home that day. Nestled to her elbow, her cheek smudged to Mama’s shoulder, Gabriella kicking from her other arm. The bees buzzing in her ears. When she set sail for the first time, Marianne had been sure there was something wrong about her hearing — it took her days to realize she’d been missing the buzz.

“We had bees at Puerto de las Flores, too,” Marianne says, rolling her cheek into Joséphine’s belly. “That’s why it’s called that. The biggest Drifter apiary outside Nuestra Señora.” Smiling, Marianne mimics the flight of a bee with her finger, landing it at the top of Joséphine’s nose. “So yeah,” she says, letting her hand drop. “Everywhere that’s home has bees.”

Joséphine catches her hand before it falls, pressing it to her cheek. “And— and here?” she asks, her voice faltering in that missed-step of unsurety that Marianne alone can recognize in her voice. She turns her face into Marianne’s palm. Presses a kiss to her skin. “Is— is the city  _ home _ for you, too?”

_ Yes, _ Marianne thinks, though that’s not what she says. Thronum Mare  _ is _ home for her. Annaïs’ house and their ridiculous excuse for a bedroom. The yard and the sound of her footsteps on the dirt. The clams in their favorite noodle stall. The city bells singing her awake every morning. All of that  _ is  _ home, but—

Marianne sits up. Wraps Joséphine’s arms around her. “This,” she says, pressing her lips to Joséphine’s neck; the buzz of her heart. “This is home.”

Joséphine’s arms tighten around her. She drops her mouth to Marianne’s temple. “Yes,” she whispers, possessive in the press of her lips. “Yes. You are.”

In Marianne’s ears, there’s buzzing so loud she can barely hear her own heart.

That’s fine by her. She’d much rather listen to Joséphine’s.  


End file.
